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Topic: God's will in everything? (Read 1548 times)

I'm reading a good book, He Leadeth Me, the spiritual memoir of Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J., who spent 23 years in Russian prison camps and gulag. I earlier read his With God in Russia and found it excellent.

I notice that where I'm at in the book he keeps on speaking of following the will of God. He relates the will of God with the humiliations and great sufferings he undergoes in prison. He writes of all this as a learning experience, that it's God will that he undergo all this to better imitate Christ. My question: does this understanding extend to everything that we experience in life? Is it God's will for someone to experience depression and suicidal thoughts, or for a woman to experience rape and PTSD? Or, to put it more precisely, that it is God's will that these be allowed to happen to people?

Is it a mystery that God allows great evil to happen to people, or is there a better way of seeing this?

Not taking this life too seriously would give you a better viewpoint.(Maybe most will misunderstand what I've just written.)

Well, what's so bad with going all through these troubles? They do seem as if they are unbearable weights and eternal curses sometimes, but it's just a temporary storm. I do that too. But I once I see the bigger picture again, everything seems so easy.

I bet that once we go to Heaven (if we ever get to), we will all be like "Wow! If I knew before that it's going to be so awesome, I wouldn't even grin for a second in my whole life!".

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Though I've walked the valley of the shadow of the death, I've fallen not. Not completely. Not yet.

Not to sound haughty, I'm sure he was a good man, but this is a common beleif in Islam - not Christian in Origin, source:http://www.abrahamic-faith.com/shamoun/Predestination%20in%20Islam.html

From my understanding, our life can be put on two paths, one narrow and one wide. Both of these our to be guided by a form of will, God's or our own. One is full of hardships which end in death by our own making, or one where the struggles can become circumstances in which we can be given new understanding and Life by God.

Anyone out there disagree? I am after all, bound to misunderstand sometimes.

Also I think it is easier to believe in predestination. Most religions have some form of it. It is easier to blame God for our suffering because sin is so deceiving. "The road to hell is paved in good intentions" is a quote I've heard before. I think it fits when we anylize how much war has been fought over what people thought was the best decisioon.

The Book of Job answers for this: "21 And [Job] said: Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord"

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"Also in the Catholic Church itself we take great care that we hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and properly Catholic" (St. Vincent of Lérins, "The Commonitory")

My understanding is that sufferings are a part of our spiritual life. God is not the cause, but allows for evil and sufferings that they might strengthen the saints and be used in judgment against the wicked. Job showed the right attitude: he knows God is the mystery behind suffering - not that he wants us to suffer, but that he shows us how to grow through suffering. He even showed this in the highest form when He himself shared the mystery of suffering and death on the Cross!

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"Also in the Catholic Church itself we take great care that we hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and properly Catholic" (St. Vincent of Lérins, "The Commonitory")

My understanding is that sufferings are a part of our spiritual life. God is not the cause, but allows for evil and sufferings that they might strengthen the saints and be used in judgment against the wicked. Job showed the right attitude: he knows God is the mystery behind suffering - not that he wants us to suffer, but that he shows us how to grow through suffering. He even showed this in the highest form when He himself shared the mystery of suffering and death on the Cross!

The paths I was referring to are the same, for they are paths of mentality. Choices. I'm a firm believer that we always have a choice to look at things in His light or our own understanding. Has anyone ever, when caught up in the moment of a situation, attempted to oppositely change his/her direction? I find this curious as I have done this. It leads me to understand just how fickle we can be, and how we can turn on a dime with equal amounts of passion. Whether we continue to make a pattern of choices in one direction or another, there-in lies the question.Prov. 5:6 -crooked pathIs 26:7 -path of the just

I have to agree with you Alex, Christ even promises that we will suffer...the World will rise up against us, they hated Him so they will hate us, and so forth.I have found that being a Christian really is a test of changing the way we see things as individuals, that is, if we did not grow up in the faith. He gives us the opportunity to see "silver linings" when we suffer. This usually doesn't happen for me until after I've gone through the trial though. I'm not that insightful.

Again, no disrespect was meant to Fr. Ciszek - it sounds as though he was able to transform a negative into a positive. This is an attribute I have not been able to attain on every occassion.

I agree that it's a great thing for him to transform into a positive what most people see as negative.

It's still difficult to see God actively willing the allowance of evils--especially those like I listed in my first post. Can we say that God allowed this evil to occur so that they might be strengthened?

I wonder if it's better to speak of God allowing man's free will and then working with man's created circumstances towards the divine plan. Make sense?